


Decimation : Find your flock

by Madison_Arden



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Post-snap, Runaways reference, it's canon divergent for AoS, no beta we die like gamora, not for the MCU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-25
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-18 11:40:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28742658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Madison_Arden/pseuds/Madison_Arden
Summary: It's been two months since the Snap happened, and Bobbi is struggling to find her place in an apocalypse.Then, an old friend contacts her and gives her a mission.
Relationships: Bobbi Morse & Natasha Romanov, Bobbi Morse & Skye | Daisy Johnson
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	Decimation : Find your flock

**Author's Note:**

> Hi. Welcome to a little fic with little plot.

It’s been two months.

Bobbi wakes, one day, alone in her bed, and she realizes that it’s been two whole months. The thought makes her shudder, and she’s tempted to go back under the covers and stay there for the day.

She already hears the noise under her building, chants, feet rumbling. It’s been one week that the demonstrations started, after everyone finally understood there was no fixing this. It’s… 9:46 A.M., she sees, and they are already on the streets. What a great start for the day.

She stands up, goes to the kitchen to grab coffee, and feels overwhelmed by the absence of normal, casual noise. Normally, when she woke up, Hunter would be there, in the bed. Right now, he would make tea with the leftover boiling water, and she would make a jab about his Britishness, just because she could. He would say “Susan Morse, leave this body !” and she would lightly smack him on the arm. Then they would finish getting ready and go to work, whatever the job of the day was.

Bobbi finishes getting ready, gets dressed, ties her hair in a ponytail, then just sits at the kitchen’s table. She hasn’t bothered looking for a new job yet, not since she was tasked to protect the Hintons. She wonders if Robin is still alive, and if her work wasn’t all for nothing in the end.

She then consciously makes an effort to stop that train of thought, and considers her options for the day. Grocery shopping ? Sure, why not, she’s almost out of apple juice anyway. And then ?

Fortunately, Bobbi is saved from considering the probable emptiness of her day by a blinking light on her cellphone. She turns it on, and there is one little notification barring her screen.

_Unknown :  
Hey. I know it’s been a while, but I might need some help if you want to keep yourself busy. Nat :)_

Bobbi gapes at her phone. It’s been years since Natasha Romanoff interacted with her, after a strongly-worded argument and Bobbi basically telling her to go to hell, and stay there.

She hesitates. On one hand, she doesn’t want to see Natasha, even after all this time, especially in her current state of semi, post Snap depression. On the other hand… She does need a job, and if an Avenger is giving her one, it must be to help the world. She craves the feeling of helping people the most, since leaving S.H.I.E.L.D.

A sigh, then she replies. _Why not, explain what it is ?_

There. No sign of their admittedly complex history, no acknowledgment she’s surprised to hear from the Widow. Of course, both of them are spies, both of them were taught to read between the lines, Nat will know.

A few seconds later, a notification pops back on her phone.

_Unknown :  
Any old S.H.I.E.L.D. device you could use for video conference ?_

Bobbi sets up her computer (brand new, thank you very much Nat, but it’s not because she isn’t with S.H.I.E.L.D. anymore that she has shitty equipment) on the table, then sends her contact info to Natasha, and two minutes later, Bobbi stares at her friend for the first time in three years. The transmission is encrypted of course, and there is a second a latency before the Widow begins to speak.

_“Hello, Bobbi.”_

“Hi, Nat.”

An awkward silence fills the room. Natasha looks exhausted, and she appears to be in some kind of living room. Her hair is short, and, surprisingly, blond, which is probably due to the fact that she had been on the run with Steve Rogers for almost two years.

“So, back with the Avengers, huh ?”

Probably not the best ice-breaker, but Bobbi is past caring about that.

Natasha laughs halfheartedly.

_“With Thanos, it was necessary. It went really quick, it wasn’t like we had a choice.”_

“Right.”

_“Have you… ? Did you… ?”_

The question is expected. This is the question everyone asks nowadays, but it doesn’t hurt less, for now. Everybody lost someone, after all.

“My ex-husband,” Bobbi answers. “Hunter.”

Nat slumps a little in her chair, and her eyes shine a bit more. Only her Red Room training is preventing her from breaking down completely, Bobbi reflects.

“Is Clint okay ?” Bobbi asks nonetheless. “I saw he wasn’t in the “dusted” part of the Avengers during your statement, but he wasn’t among you either.”

Natasha bits her lip,

_“I don’t know,” she admits. “He wasn’t with us when we fought Thanos because he was still on house arrest for his part in the Accords. I went to his farm a couple weeks ago and no one was there.”_

“Shit. Laura ? The kids ?”

_“I don’t know,” she reiterates, and it seems to pain her to even admit it. “At least one of them is alive, Clint, probably, because some of his stuff was missing. Maria and Fury are gone, too.”_

Bobbi must be making a pretty unbelieving face, because Natasha manages to laugh – a wet laugh, but a laugh either way.

_“I didn’t want to believe it, too.”_ She closes her eyes for a brief moment.

The silence following isn’t so awkward anymore. It is more of a mourning silence, one both of them share, and – once again – those kind of silence are becoming common nowadays.  
Then, Natasha looks up, and her eyes aren’t shiny anymore, her mouth is pressed in a thin line, her posture is straighter, and Bobbi knows they are moving on to the business part of this.

_“So, we’ve been busy recently, trying to deal with the protests, the governments, and- and basically everything happening right now because of the Snap. It’s our responsibility.”_

Bobbi nods. The Avengers – or what’s left of them – are everywhere, helping where they can, trying to calm down protesters, preventing coups in some countries, making sure the chaos doesn’t kill the half of the population still alive. They don’t have much success, since everyone is blaming them for their failure in stopping Thanos, but they sure do as much as they can.

_“We are taking care of emergency after emergency, which means we can’t deal with any subsidiary threats, or even simple suspicions. There’s only four of us, with some help from General Okoye of Wakanda, and without S.H.I.E.L.D., there’s only so much we can do by ourselves.”_

“Where do you need me ?”

Natasha blinks, clearly not expecting Bobby to be so straightforward. The latter returns her gaze, with what she hopes Nat will see as confidence.

_“You know the actual situation, right ? All over the world, people are angry, or sad, or both. You cannot find a country where everything is fine – everybody is confused, and- and they say it, tell the world, tell the internet, march on the streets. When the Snap happened, the whole world ended up on the internet, frantically asking each other about what was happening. That is normal behavior.”_

“Get to the point, Nat.”

_“We didn’t notice at first, but apparently it happened before the Snap, it was very subtle… But it became obvious after. Bobbi, almost the entirety of Los Angeles has gone silent.”_

Bobbi doesn’t quite know what to think of that.

“What does that mean ?” she asks slowly.

_“It means none of them are angry, confused, or sad. They- they actually post some happy stuff on the internet. The Snap happened for them, no doubt, some of them acknowledged it, but in passing, almost as an afterthought. It’s seriously creepy, I’ll send you some examples.”_

“So, you want me to go there ?”

_“Just for some scouting !”_ hastily replied Natasha. _“We need some intel on what’s happening over there, but my contact there has been snapped, and there’s always an emergency we have to deal with before we can give it a look. Listen, you don’t have to do this, but this is worrying me a lot.”_

Bobbi can’t help but agree with her friend’s statement. A city as big as LA going silent during a crisis, or reacting to anything but the crisis, that could be called way worse than “worrisome”.

“Send me the details,” she says, and her friend’s face falls with relief. “I’ll take a look – but you’re buying me the plane ticket.”

_“Thank you, Bobbi.”_ Natasha sounds sincere.

Then, the Widow whips her head around to nod to someone arriving in the room on her end with a curt “Agent”, and Bobbi prepares to end the call ; but another voice comes through before she has time to do so.

_“Wait a second Romanoff, is that Bobbi ?”_

The voice sounds bemused, but Bobbi recognizes it almost immediately, and is confirmed in her assessment by none other than Agent Daisy Johnson, appearing on the call.

That is… very, very unexpected.

Daisy and Bobbi had had some contact in the past few months, after the former and the team had come back from wherever they were, and Hunter and the latter had to take care of the Hintons. That included sending in various status reports and being tasked with new instructions, like move to a new city, but there were also, always, some hand-written lines in the margins of the new order. Most of them were from Mack, Jemma or Fitz, but May, Coulson and Daisy got to write a few of them as well.

Then, Hunter and Bobbi were released from the responsibility of the Hinton family, and shortly after, the Snap happened, Hunter disappeared. Since then, radio silence from S.H.I.E.L.D.

That also means Bobbi has no idea who survived in her old team.

Daisy is better looking than the last time Bobbi saw her, which was on TV, last year, when S.H.I.E.L.D. was trying to go back in the world and failing. She let her hair grow, and she wears a classic S.H.I.E.L.D. tactical suit, and, while she bears in her eyes the kind of hazy, confused look everyone now has, she doesn’t seem as defeated as Natasha. There is something, maybe some kind of bounce in her step, that is different. And of course, she is somehow _at the Avengers’ headquarters_ , which is very different.

Daisy is also looking at her carefully, filing in the details that changed in the two years they’ve been apart, so Bobbi decides it’s up to her to open the conversation.

“Hello, Daisy. I didn’t know you were part of the Avengers ?”

Daisy narrows her eyes, and shakes her head.

_“Nah, I’m just squatting here for now. I had my own thing in Chicago when those guys were fighting Alien Guy.”_

And, okay, maybe she sounds okay, but Bobbi is no stranger to Daisy putting up a brave front to spare others.

_“They are helping me rescue Fitz from space,”_ Daisy continues, and Bobbi does a double take. Wait, what ?

“So Fitz is fine ? He wasn’t...”

She doesn’t say the words, but Daisy’s face darkens anyway. Then she looks at Natasha and shoots her an embarrassed look.

_“Uh, sorry for hacking your call, Agent Romanoff, but I kinda need a moment with Bobbi in private, to, well, you know.”_

Nat huffs a little, which Bobbi finds very funny, but leaves the call anyway, and Daisy speaks again.

_“We don’t know if he’s up there, but we don’t know if he’s not. We broke the loop and he doesn’t know, he’s probably frozen waiting for the something that will never happen. We need our genius scientist back.”_

“But, I thought he came back with you from the... ?”

Daisy’s face scrunches up, and Bobbi now feels bad for asking a very normal, reasonable question.

_“Different Fitz. Apparently. Some sciency stuff happening here. Don’t ask. This Fitz died during the mess in Chicago.”_

Bobbi thinks she might be crazy, because she swears she just saw some kind of vindictive triumph on Daisy’s face just now. But this is Fitz they are talking about, Daisy’s almost-brother, so she must be wrong.

“What happened to the others ?” 

There is a lump in her throat, but she had to ask. Daisy starts fiddling with her hair.

_“We, uh… we lost May, Simmons and Elena to the Snap.”_ (Then, a big breath, and she continues.) _“Mack’s alive, but very depressed, he lost his brother too. He’s still the current director, but he… closed S.H.I.E.L.D. ? Kind of ? He sent all the agents back to their family. Fitz, well, you know.”_

Bobbi nods, and doesn’t know what to say, so she presses for more information.

“What about C- the former director ?”

One rule Bobbi learned, when she was in Coulson’s newly formed S.H.I.E.L.D., was this very simple thing : the Avengers must never know S.H.I.E.L.D. survived. And if they did – which happened, since S.H.I.E.L.D. went public – they should never, ever learn about Coulson’s survival. Ever. And while she knew Natasha had left the room, Bobbi wouldn’t put it past her to record this conversation.

Daisy probably has the same suspicions, because she glances outside the screen before looking back to her.

_“Did you know he was ill ?”_

The abrupt question has Bobbi’s eyes widen in shock because, no, she did not, wasn’t he immortal ?

_“Yeah, I guess not. We didn’t know either, until it was almost too late, and even then, he sacrificed the only cure he had to help me get rid of Talbot in Chicago. He did survive the Snap, but died about twenty day later. I was there.”_

“And, and the Hintons ?”

_“Polly’s gone. I made sure Robin went to a family of retired agents for now, but there’s not much I can do right now.”_

“Right.”

Bobbi should probably take time to process all of this, but Daisy doesn’t allow her to.

_“Is Hunter around ?”_

“I- No.”

Daisy blinks rapidly, then brush a hand through her hair.

_“Sorry. I assumed, since you weren’t telling me...”_

“Yeah, that’s, that’s life right now, I guess.”

_“Yeah.”_

The awkward Snap silence is back, but Daisy is the first to shake herself out of this, and she calls Natasha back on the screen, before turning to Bobbi and whispering quickly before the Widow arrives _“Also, not a word about what happened to us earlier this year, or the two Fitzes issue, or whatever related to it, that’s still classified, especially with the Avengers.”_

It’s only then that Bobbi notices Daisy has been firmly avoiding saying anything incriminating about time travel. She knows about it through Hunter, of course, but she can see why telling the Avengers about the broken loop of the end of the world might give them some bad ideas. Those guys are prone to mistake, after all, and when they do make mistakes, they are huge. Like, disappearance-of-the-half-of-humanity huge.

Natasha comes back, but there is not much she has to add on the mission she gave Bobbi. Get in LA, get out with intel and without whatever makes everyone there stupidly happy, report back using the phone number she gives her. Daisy adds a few unhelpful advice from _“someone who used to live in LA, Bobbi, you should listen to me”_ (“you were living in a van, I don’t take advice from someone who was living in a van”), then says her goodbyes, with Natasha rapidly following suit.

The call ends, and Bobbi is still reeling from the weird vibe of that conversation. Daisy at the Avengers’, Fitz in space, Mack depressed, May and Simmons snapped, Coulson dead… That’s a lot to take in, so she sits back in her chair, and tries to process it.

At least now she has a mission to do.

A week later she is standing in the Los Angeles airport, and makes it to the exit, when a twenty-something girl stops her, and asks “Hey, you got the CorvusWizPhone yet ?”

“Uh, no ? What is it ?”

“You haven’t heard of it ? “Find your flock”, the ads are everywhere ! Listen, we are promoting equality of chances for everyone, so we are giving them for free.”

It’s only then Bobbi notices the white raven on the girl’s black shirt, and her blue bag full of brand new, black phones.  
“Here,” the girl hands her one of them. “Now it’s yours. You can find your flock.”

Bobbi stares at her dumbfounded, the phone in one hand. Is she being attacked with kindness ? What the hell is wrong with LA ?

She laughs nervously.

“Y’know, I doubt a brand new phone will fix everything about the Snap.”

“The… Oh, right. Well, it might not, but it helps with human connection. You’ll see, it’s not like every Starkphone, Wizard is about to change the world.”

Well, that doesn’t sound ominous at all. The girl leaves, and Bobbi stares at her newly acquired possession, feeling very dumb. But, well, it’s a free phone, and she can’t really return it now, can she ? Plus it does seem like this is related to the weird cheeriness of that girl, so that might be the beginning of a lead…

Bobbi turns the phone around, and stares at the stylized raven on it.

**Author's Note:**

> So, you read that and came out alive ? Congratulations, it's my first published fic. As you can probably tell by the weirds expressions, English is not my first language. Sorry about all those weird stuff, really.  
> Anyway, have a nice day !


End file.
